Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Risk in Light of Facts

In some ways Ulrich Beck would
probably interpret the “Perception of Climate Change” study as a step in the
right direction, however his paper highlights some important aspects of risk
which is blatantly fails to address. The paper is quite rigorous in elucidating
the overwhelming likelihood of global warming through the direct mechanism of
analyzing the previous fifty years, and the changes of mean temperature month-by
-month. Their most effective argument can be summed up with two pieces of data,
the fact that there is a 2.3% chance of the temperature exceeding 2 standard
deviations (of local seasonal mean temperature) and a 0.13% chance of an excess
of three standard deviations, paired with the actual recorded changes of these events occurring around
the globe. Their study showed that with more and more frequency abnormally high
temperature have occurred around the globe, with zero percent of the globe seeing surface temperature anomalies above
3 standard deviations happening in 1955, 65, or 75, however in 2009, 10, and 11
the percent effected were 17.6%, 13%,
and 14.8% respectively - and recent abnormalities
of 2 standard deviations have been consistently 10-20 percent higher than those
recorded in the first three decades mentioned. Furthermore they do not draw their maps along
national boundaries which is aligned with Becks’ thinking that risk is
amorphous and not evenly distributed. While this evidence is very convincing of
general climate change, nonetheless according to Beck it may very well not
ferment any significant change in humanities actions.

The
authors of the study say in their conclusion “With the temperature elevated by
global warming, and ubiquitous surface heating from greenhouse gas amounts,
extreme drought conditions can develop” (Hansen et al, 8) and reference other projected
effects, such as hotter summers, unusually heavy rainfall, and change in the
range of animals. However the devil is in the details here – yes, they have
statistically shown that it is very likely that global warming is happening –
but the link to greenhouse gasses which they mention is not highlighted in
their study. While they name various risks, these are all risks mainly
explained in terms of how they will affect the environment, and ignore one key
point which beck warns against: letting
humans atrophy from the natural in the terms of your debate. Indeed they
mention that people who have lived through the fifties on might notice the
frequency of these abnormally hot summers; however this can oxymoronically reduce this group’s
worries as those who’s livelihood isn’t directly changed by the natural factors
have probably not been worried by these changes – and may have even enjoyed the
rays of sunshine. As Beck says “In definition of risks,
the sciences monopoly on rationality is broken. there are
always competing and conflicting claims, interests and viewpoints of the
various agents of modernity and effected groups” (Beck,
29).

Those
groups which have a financial stake in the question whether greenhouse gasses
are to blame for this climate change (and subsequently, the source of these
gasses) will “and
attempt to bring up other causes and other originators" (Beck, 31). Indeed there are many huge industries which rely on
the continued production of greenhouse gasses – oil, and coal as fuels –and as
such they will attack this Achilles Heel of the argument that this paper puts
forward. Likewise, this study does not really address risk multipliers, such as
the self-reflexive cycle where increased submerging of the polar ice caps
reduces their ability to reflect the sun and thus causes the poles to absorb
more heat, further speeding this process. Though more extreme weather patterns
are already visible in many facets, this does not change social perception - "risks have something
to do with anticipation, with destruction that has not yet happened but is
threatening, and of course the sense that risks are not yet real today” (Beck, 33).

So
with the combined force of not entirely certain
causes, and many industry advocates trying to confuse the public discussions of
global climate change the public is unlikely to demand change, and divided
politics keeps any fundamental change from happening. “The old question: how do we wish to
live? What is the human quality if humankind, the natural quality of nature
which is to be preserved“ (Beck, 28) is obfuscated by
shortsightedness, and the dual nature of risk as real and unreal. The death
blow is delivered when "causes dribble away into a general amalgam of agents and
conditions...this reveals in an exemplaryfashion
the ethical significance of the system concept: one can do something and
continue doing it without having to take personal responsibility for it" (Beck, 33). I think Beck’s main critique of this study would be
that “scientific
rationality without social rationality remains empty"(Beck, 30), empty in the sense that something must be done with this
data, but in going directly against the overwhelming mode of industrial
production the argument reaches an impasse. It is not that the Hansen et al.
make an argument too extreme, but that they make an argument not extreme
enough, or not fully realized. Albeit, one scientific study can only cover so
much ground, and so it must be viewed in the context of a puzzle piece but not
as the whole of an argument.